Gatwick Airport drone incident

Separately, something that occurred to me which I've not seen mentioned elsewhere yet, is that it could have been part of planning for a Christmas warehouse heist. I would expect high-end drone technology is well within the grasp of organised criminal gangs... "yeah Tony knows a guy who flies them at weekends, let's get him on the crew in return for a cut of the profits".

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Would a gang of villains planning such a heist do their drone testing in such a highly visible and public way, though? All they've done is guarantee that everyone everywhere will be watching for drones now...

I'm not sure it's got any relevance to recent events at Gatwick though.

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It might have a relevance if it's eventually shown that the drones were the subject of a vivid imagination or two that then gets blown out of all proportion. All a big 'if', I agree. If nothing else, it should certainly be a huge wake-up call for what might have been and might actually produce such a rocket up Useless Grayling's backside that it launches him into space, never to be seen again, but doubtless that fantasy won't come to pass; it never does.

Would a gang of villains planning such a heist do their drone testing in such a highly visible and public way, though? All they've done is guarantee that everyone everywhere will be watching for drones now...

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Such a group could well have been planning for far less attention, alternately this could have been a test to see just how much stealthy activity was achievable (apparently "not much").

It might have a relevance if it's eventually shown that the drones were the subject of a vivid imagination or two that then gets blown out of all proportion. All a big 'if', I agree. If nothing else, it should certainly be a huge wake-up call for what might have been and might actually produce such a rocket up Useless Grayling's backside that it launches him into space, never to be seen again, but doubtless that fantasy won't come to pass; it never does.

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Have you been on the Christmas sherry?

Anyway back in the real world Sussex police are coming under a lot of scrutiny for their handling of the whole thing including the arrest of two people who turned out to be completely innocent.

To be fair they are right in that they attempted to protect the identity of the two arrested, not releasing any personal details in case they were innocent, but the media leaked it after interviewing neighbours.

Anyway back in the real world Sussex police are coming under a lot of scrutiny for their handling of the whole thing including the arrest of two people who turned out to be completely innocent.

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In answer to the question, regrettably not.

'The real world' is an interesting concept. This is presumably the world in which Donald J. Trump has been elected President of the United States and is now blaming the Fed for the largest downturn in stocks in a decade.

To be fair they are right in that they attempted to protect the identity of the two arrested, not releasing any personal details in case they were innocent, but the media leaked it after interviewing neighbours.

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That doesn't really stand up. If no information was released, how did the media know where to go to interview the neighbours?

That doesn't really stand up. If no information was released, how did the media know where to go to interview the neighbours?

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When the couple were arrested neighbours would have seen police cars at their house and a lot of activity. It’s very hard for the police to be discreet about this. If you have a forensic team pulling the house, garden and garage apart, there will be a pile of vehicles in the street, loads of uniformed officers coming and going and neighbours will notice. Some will comment about it on social media or even ring the papers. And there are subtler ways for reporters to find out too. It’s their profession after all.

I wonder where reports of the initial sighting came from? I was assuming that pilots, ATC staff or airport officials had seen it?

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Throwing into confusion and why the uncertainty cast on witnesses by the police commanders statement was retracted was because a police unit itself reported being taunted by a drone flashing its lights at them.

I think it's reasonable for a layperson airport worker to have seen a Police unit and reported the sighting. Ideally the commander would have been suitably informed and able to filter as appropriate.

Then, in the present day, the Force doesn't want to be caught 'covering up' such information (imagine the headline "Police LIED about knowing that drones were its own"), so it is honest but this is now misinterpreted.

I note that the statement does not state that all of the sightings were false alarms!

'Gatwick, this is Heathrow here. Our very advanced radar systems are showing drone activity very close to your flight paths. We realise, of course, you don't have access to our level of sophistication, and we don't want to sound patronising, but maybe you need to take some action? Do let us know if we can be of any further assistance. Good luck!'